Charity’s Dead- So What Next?

Charity, as we know it, is dead, but there’s a new alternative to solve the world’s problems. A blog by our CEO Bessi Graham that initially appeared in Probono in August 2016.

This is going to be a difficult pill to swallow for many, but it is time to accept that the charity and philanthropy models as we know them are unfortunately not going to solve the world’s problems.

If they were, then the range of complex social and environmental challenges we face would be solved by now.

The same goes for traditional aid and development approaches. Despite our very best efforts and intentions, the current approaches fail to deliver either the social outcomes we desire, or a sustainable method of funding that ensures the ongoing provision of products and services.

“It’s time for a new model. It’s time to shift our mindset to one that is built on a premise that might upset your worldview”.

You can do good and make money in the same business model. It’s called blended value – the delivery of both a social or environmental return and a financial return, without compromising on either.

For people operating in a world of black and white, where it’s either profit or Not for Profit, or doing good versus making money, this alternative worldview is a difficult one to accept. But accepting it is the critical first step we need to take to enable the design and delivery of business models that will change the world.

Once we’ve accepted this new worldview, it’s time for another (also hard) critical step – to stop thinking of social enterprise as a silver bullet.

Despite social enterprise being a buzzword, which can get as annoying as “innovation” and “disruption”, more often than not people simultaneously misunderstand and limit social enterprise.

Not for Profits and others in the social sector are excitedly discussing social enterprise, and how it will magically fill their funding gaps and save them from certain doom in a changing funding landscape. However, when you scratch beneath the surface many are using the term social enterprise to refer to a grant reliant Not for Profit that has “some kind of trading”. There’s nothing new, innovative or agile about that, and it’s certainly not sustainable.

“We’ve loved working with TDi so far, and there’s still plenty we can do together.”

– Peter Allen, CEO of Ethical Property Australia

At the same time as seeing social enterprise as the potential saviour of the Not for Profit sector you’ll hear comments like, “There’s no business model for doing good,” or, “We’re dealing with a segment of society that could never pay a commercial rate for our services so we will always need philanthropy.” However, instead of continuing to drain grant dollars out of a limited pool, social enterprises should focus on building a commercial model that will make them less grant reliant, thereby freeing up grants for fledgling enterprises who are in the grant reliant stage.

So why do we continue to believe that doing good and making money are mutually exclusive? Why are we so uncomfortable with integrated models that blur the lines and get us closer to cracking into new territory; on both our ability to make a dint on the social and environmental challenges we’re trying to address and on opening up new pools of capital that were previously unavailable to the social sector?

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The TDi team acknowledges that we work, live and play on Aboriginal land, our offices are located on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation & we pay respect to their elders past present and future. Where ever our work takes us, we acknowledge the traditional land owners and pay our respects.